Building the Caribbean with Crowdfunding: A Virtual Chat

On October 13, 2015 we hosted a webinar to engage with Caribbean Nationals, Residents, Diaspora and their friends to explore how they can contribute to build your Caribbean Community using crowdfunding: by donations and/or through advance purchase of new products or services to be offered by entrepreneurs.

Through this forum we sought to facilitate a better understanding of crowdfunding, how it works and also how, through pitchandchoose.com, projects and causes in the Caribbean can be crowdfunded. Our message was centered on the following:

You may have always wanted to give to causes or ventures in the Caribbean but never quite had an easy way to do so. Crowdfunding on pitchandchoose.com now makes this easier.

If as an entrepreneur in the Caribbean you want to raise funds to grow and scale businesses by pre-selling goods and/or services, then crowdfunding may be right for you.

Or if as a Non Profit or Alumni Association you have been finding it increasingly difficult to attract funding for your programs from your traditional sources, crowdfunding can enable you to reach your community with your causes or ventures.

Persons faced with personal emergencies, the need for urgent medical treatment and other such “fund me” causes can also turn to crowdfunding to raise funding from families, friends and their communities with whom these issues resonate.

The format for the webinar was:
1.) A Presentation on Crowdfunding and how it works
2.) Open Chat Forum to explore the prospects for crowdfunding to make a substantial impact on transforming lives in the Caribbean.

The level of awareness for Global Diaspora Week is not yet where we would like it to be in the Caribbean. I think, however, that each year there will be greater traction by continuous engagement with those who are on the map, providing social media support!